Classpath exception

[Simon Phipps]

As was widely discussed at the time, as a subset of the overall  
licensing decision Sun made this particular choice as a way to signal  
to the GNU project that OpenJDK was intended as a unifying action with  
Classpath and the host of other related GPL-licensed projects. We  
recognised that we could have used several licensing arrangements such  
as the one you identify, but we wanted to make absolutely sure that  
there was no doubt that the licensing arrangement was 100% compatible  
with GNU and that there was no cunning tricksy plan around the  
licensing.

S.

On Mar 11, 2009, at 13:46, Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:

> A non-F/OSS-savvy co-worker asked me (as the resident F/OSS expert  
> in a
> mostly closed-source shop) about the implications of the GPL for Java
> code.  The quick answer is that HotSpot and the standard library are
> distributed under the GPL with the classpath exception, but I'm a  
> little
> unclear on the details of the latter.  If it thinks what I think it
> means, I don't see why Sun couldn't simply have used the LGPL.  Any
> pointers?
>
> DES
> -- 
> Dag-Erling Smørgrav - des at des.no